European Envoy Meets Hamas Official

Published: April 6, 2007

A senior British diplomat met with the Palestinian prime minister in Gaza on Thursday to discuss the fate of a kidnapped BBC correspondent, Alan Johnston.

It was the first meeting between a senior Hamas official and an official European Union envoy since the new Palestinian unity government was formed in mid-March. European Union countries, along with the United States and Israel, have said they will not deal with Hamas because they consider it a terrorist group.

The meeting on Thursday between the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya of Hamas, and the diplomat, Richard Makepeace, the consul general in Jerusalem, was described by a British diplomat as having taken place on ''humanitarian grounds'' and not as a change of policy.

Israeli officials said they accepted the British explanation. Palestinian officials presented the meeting as a diplomatic breakthrough.

In Jerusalem, the Israeli military said soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian man while on patrol near Jericho in the West Bank. The military said the man was among a group of three who repeatedly refused orders to halt and ignored shots fired in the air. The other two were detained for questioning. The military said that it was unclear whether the men had been armed and that it had started an investigation of the incident.